"Fitra of the Gaps" and moral epistemology

A thread on appealing to the fitra as a basis for moral knowledge:

It is not uncommon for Muslims who advocate for some form of Theological Voluntarism to appeal to the fitra as a means of access to the truth of certain moral judgements (eg. "We know x is right/wrong on the basis of our fitra").  1/

This "access" is assumed to occur through our moral intuitions. But moral intuitions vary from individual to individual, culture to culture. To explain this phenomenon, it is then posited that faulty intuitions are the result of a corrupted fitra/cultural influence,  2/

whereas veridical intuitions are the result of a properly functioning fitra, where veridical intuitions are those which accord with divine revelation. The appeal to the fitra can then be understood as a privileging of certain moral intuitions as opposed to others,  3/

namely, those intuitions which are in line with the dictates of revelation. Problems ensue however. Since there's no phenomenological distinction to be made between "correct" and "incorrect" moral intuitions, even if the former are the result of a "pure" fitra,  4/

we wouldn't be able to determine which are the product of a "pure" fitra (hence veridical), and which that of a "corrupted" one (hence erroneous) on the basis of the intuitions themselves. That determination would then be contingent on access to revelation.  5/

As a result, it wouldn't be true to say that we have access to certain moral truths on the basis of the fitra, since the latter is incapable of serving as a justification for moral knowledge, only revelation could then serve that purpose (per Divine Command Theory).  6/

Furthermore, even after access to revelation, there'd be no grounds to claim that our moral intuitions which do accord with revelation proceed from the fitra (unless specified in revelation).  7/

This is because the correspondence could just as well be the result of the inculcation of cultural norms which, for historically contingent reasons, correspond to the dictates of revelation (or influence how we interpret them).  8/

Concluding point:

The positing of the fitra has no theoretical significance for moral epistemology in the context of Theological Voluntarism since an appeal to it cannot justify moral claims.  9/

Instead, it serves a rhetorical purpose in (unjustifiably) granting epistemic privilege to certain intuitions (those in line with revelation) over others, as a means to explain how we can know certain moral truths independently of revelation.

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